Jacques Derrida (pronounced [ʒak dɛʁida][1]) (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. His voluminous work has had a profound impact upon literary theory and continental philosophy. His best known work is Of Grammatology.Derrida was born on July 15, 1930, in El-Biar (near Algiers), then French Algeria, into a Sephardic Jewish family, the third of five children. His given name was Jackie, though he would later adopt a more "correct" version of his first name.[2] His youth was spent in El-Biar, Algeria.
On the first day of the school year in 1942, Derrida was expelled from his lycée by French administrators implementing anti-Semitic quotas set by the Vichy government. He secretly skipped school for a year rather than attend the Jewish lycée formed by displaced teachers and students. At this time, as well as taking part in numerous football competitions (he dreamed of becoming a professional player), Derrida read works of philosophers and writers such as Rousseau, Camus, Nietzsche, and Gide. He began to think seriously about philosophy around 1948 and 1949. He became a boarding student at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, which he did not enjoy. Derrida failed his entrance examination twice before finally being admitted to the École Normale Supérieure at the end of the 1951–52 school year.
On his first day at the École Normale Supérieure Derrida met Louis Althusser, with whom he became friends. He also became friends with Michel Foucault, whose lectures he attended. After visiting the Husserl Archive in Leuven, Belgium, he completed his philosophy agrégation on Edmund Husserl. Derrida received a grant for studies at Harvard University, and in June 1957 married Marguerite Aucouturier in Boston. During the Algerian War of Independence, Derrida asked to teach soldiers' children in lieu of military service, teaching French and English from 1957 to 1959.
Following the war Derrida began a long association with the Tel Quel group of literary and philosophical theorists. At the same time, from 1960 to 1964, Derrida taught philosophy at the Sorbonne, and from 1964 to 1984 at the École Normale Superieure. His wife Marguerite gave birth to their first child, Pierre, in 1963. Beginning with his 1966 lecture at Johns Hopkins University, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences", his work assumed international prominence. A second son, Jean, was born in 1967. In the same year, Derrida published his first three books—Writing and Difference, Speech and Phenomena, and Of Grammatology—which would make his name.
He completed his Thèse d'État in 1980; the work was subsequently published in English translation as "The Time of a Thesis: Punctuations." In 1983 Derrida collaborated with Ken McMullen on the film Ghost Dance. Derrida appears in the film as himself and also contributed to the script.
Derrida travelled widely and held a series of visiting and permanent positions. Derrida was director of studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. With François Châtelet and others he in 1983 co-founded the Collège international de philosophie (CIPH), an institution intended to provide a location for philosophical research which could not be carried out elsewhere in the academy. He was elected as its first president.
Sylviane Agacinski gave birth to Derrida's third son, Daniel, in 1984.
In 1986 Derrida became Professor of the Humanities at the University of California, Irvine. UCI and the Derrida family are currently involved in a legal dispute regarding exactly what materials constitute his archive, part of which was informally bequeathed to the university.[3] He was a regular visiting professor at several other major American universities, including Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, New York University, and The New School for Social Research.
Derrida was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the 2001 Adorno-Preis from the University of Frankfurt. He was awarded honorary doctorates by Cambridge University, Columbia University, The New School for Social Research, the University of Essex, University of Leuven, and Williams College.
In 2002, Derrida appeared in a documentary about himself and his work, entitled Derrida.
In 2003, Derrida was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which reduced his speaking and travelling engagements. He died in a Parisian hospital on the evening of October 8, 2004.
On the first day of the school year in 1942, Derrida was expelled from his lycée by French administrators implementing anti-Semitic quotas set by the Vichy government. He secretly skipped school for a year rather than attend the Jewish lycée formed by displaced teachers and students. At this time, as well as taking part in numerous football competitions (he dreamed of becoming a professional player), Derrida read works of philosophers and writers such as Rousseau, Camus, Nietzsche, and Gide. He began to think seriously about philosophy around 1948 and 1949. He became a boarding student at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, which he did not enjoy. Derrida failed his entrance examination twice before finally being admitted to the École Normale Supérieure at the end of the 1951–52 school year.
On his first day at the École Normale Supérieure Derrida met Louis Althusser, with whom he became friends. He also became friends with Michel Foucault, whose lectures he attended. After visiting the Husserl Archive in Leuven, Belgium, he completed his philosophy agrégation on Edmund Husserl. Derrida received a grant for studies at Harvard University, and in June 1957 married Marguerite Aucouturier in Boston. During the Algerian War of Independence, Derrida asked to teach soldiers' children in lieu of military service, teaching French and English from 1957 to 1959.
Following the war Derrida began a long association with the Tel Quel group of literary and philosophical theorists. At the same time, from 1960 to 1964, Derrida taught philosophy at the Sorbonne, and from 1964 to 1984 at the École Normale Superieure. His wife Marguerite gave birth to their first child, Pierre, in 1963. Beginning with his 1966 lecture at Johns Hopkins University, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences", his work assumed international prominence. A second son, Jean, was born in 1967. In the same year, Derrida published his first three books—Writing and Difference, Speech and Phenomena, and Of Grammatology—which would make his name.
He completed his Thèse d'État in 1980; the work was subsequently published in English translation as "The Time of a Thesis: Punctuations." In 1983 Derrida collaborated with Ken McMullen on the film Ghost Dance. Derrida appears in the film as himself and also contributed to the script.
Derrida travelled widely and held a series of visiting and permanent positions. Derrida was director of studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. With François Châtelet and others he in 1983 co-founded the Collège international de philosophie (CIPH), an institution intended to provide a location for philosophical research which could not be carried out elsewhere in the academy. He was elected as its first president.
Sylviane Agacinski gave birth to Derrida's third son, Daniel, in 1984.
In 1986 Derrida became Professor of the Humanities at the University of California, Irvine. UCI and the Derrida family are currently involved in a legal dispute regarding exactly what materials constitute his archive, part of which was informally bequeathed to the university.[3] He was a regular visiting professor at several other major American universities, including Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, New York University, and The New School for Social Research.
Derrida was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the 2001 Adorno-Preis from the University of Frankfurt. He was awarded honorary doctorates by Cambridge University, Columbia University, The New School for Social Research, the University of Essex, University of Leuven, and Williams College.
In 2002, Derrida appeared in a documentary about himself and his work, entitled Derrida.
In 2003, Derrida was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which reduced his speaking and travelling engagements. He died in a Parisian hospital on the evening of October 8, 2004.
Derrida began speaking and writing publicly at a time when the French intellectual scene was experiencing an increasing rift between what could broadly speaking be called "phenomenological" and "structural" approaches to understanding individual and collective life. For those with a more phenomenological bent, the goal was to understand experience by comprehending and describing its genesis, the process of its emergence from an origin or event. For the structuralists, this was precisely the false problem, and the "depth" of experience could in fact only be an effect of structures which are not themselves experiential. It is in this context that in 1959 Derrida asks the question: must not structure have a genesis, and must not the origin, the point of genesis, be already structured, in order to be the genesis of something?[5]
In other words, every structural or "synchronic" phenomenon has a history, and the structure cannot be understood without understanding its genesis.[6] At the same time, in order that there be movement, or potential, the origin cannot be some pure unity or simplicity, but must already be articulated—complex—such that from it a "diachronic" process can emerge. This originary complexity must not be understood as an original positing, but more like a default of origin, which Derrida refers to as iterability, inscription, or textuality.[7] It is this thought of originary complexity, rather than original purity, which destabilises the thought of both genesis and structure, that sets Derrida's work in motion, and from which derive all of its terms, including deconstruction.[8]
Derrida's method consisted in demonstrating all the forms and varieties of this originary complexity, and their multiple consequences in many fields. His way of achieving this was by conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational readings of philosophical and literary texts, with an ear to what in those texts runs counter to their apparent systematicity (structural unity) or intended sense (authorial genesis). By demonstrating the aporias and ellipses of thought, Derrida hoped to show the infinitely subtle ways that this originary complexity, which by definition cannot ever be completely known, works its structuring and destructuring effects.
In other words, every structural or "synchronic" phenomenon has a history, and the structure cannot be understood without understanding its genesis.[6] At the same time, in order that there be movement, or potential, the origin cannot be some pure unity or simplicity, but must already be articulated—complex—such that from it a "diachronic" process can emerge. This originary complexity must not be understood as an original positing, but more like a default of origin, which Derrida refers to as iterability, inscription, or textuality.[7] It is this thought of originary complexity, rather than original purity, which destabilises the thought of both genesis and structure, that sets Derrida's work in motion, and from which derive all of its terms, including deconstruction.[8]
Derrida's method consisted in demonstrating all the forms and varieties of this originary complexity, and their multiple consequences in many fields. His way of achieving this was by conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational readings of philosophical and literary texts, with an ear to what in those texts runs counter to their apparent systematicity (structural unity) or intended sense (authorial genesis). By demonstrating the aporias and ellipses of thought, Derrida hoped to show the infinitely subtle ways that this originary complexity, which by definition cannot ever be completely known, works its structuring and destructuring effects.
At the very beginning of his philosophical career Derrida was concerned to elaborate a critique of the limits of phenomenology. His first lengthy academic manuscript, written as a dissertation for his diplôme d'études supérieures and submitted in 1954, concerned the work of Edmund Husserl.[10] In 1962 he published Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction, which contained his own translation of Husserl's essay. Many elements of Derrida's thought were already present in this work. In the interviews collected in Positions (1972), Derrida said: "In this essay the problematic of writing was already in place as such, bound to the irreducible structure of 'deferral' in its relationships to consciousness, presence, science, history and the history of science, the disappearance or delay of the origin, etc. [...] this essay can be read as the other side (recto or verso, as you wish) of Speech and Phenomena."[11]
Derrida first received major attention outside France with his lecture, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," delivered at Johns Hopkins University in 1966 (and subsequently included in Writing and Difference). The conference at which this paper was delivered was concerned with structuralism, then at the peak of its influence in France, but only beginning to gain attention in the United States. Derrida differed from other participants by his lack of explicit commitment to structuralism, having already been critical of the movement. He praised the accomplishments of structuralism but also maintained reservations about its internal limitations, thus leading to the notion that his thought was a form of post-structuralism.
Derrida first received major attention outside France with his lecture, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," delivered at Johns Hopkins University in 1966 (and subsequently included in Writing and Difference). The conference at which this paper was delivered was concerned with structuralism, then at the peak of its influence in France, but only beginning to gain attention in the United States. Derrida differed from other participants by his lack of explicit commitment to structuralism, having already been critical of the movement. He praised the accomplishments of structuralism but also maintained reservations about its internal limitations, thus leading to the notion that his thought was a form of post-structuralism.
The effect of Derrida's paper was such that by the time the conference proceedings were published in 1970, the title of the collection had become The Structuralist Controversy. The conference was also where he met Paul de Man, who would be a close friend and source of great controversy, as well as where he first met the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, with whose work Derrida enjoyed a mixed relationship.
Derrida's interests traversed disciplinary boundaries, and his knowledge of a wide array of diverse material was reflected in the three collections of work published in 1967: Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, and Speech and Phenomena.[12] These three books contained readings of the work of many philosophers and authors, including Husserl, linguist de Saussure, Heidegger, Rousseau, Lévinas, Hegel, Foucault, Bataille, Descartes, anthropologist Lévi-Strauss, paleontologist Leroi-Gourhan, psychoanalyst Freud, and writers such as Jabès and Artaud. Derrida frequently acknowledged his debt to Husserl and Heidegger, and stated that without them he would have not said a single word.[13][14] Among the questions asked in these essays are "What is 'meaning,' what are its historical relationships to what is purportedly identified under the rubric 'voice' as a value of presence, presence of the object, presence of meaning to consciousness, self-presence in so called living speech and in self-consciousness?"[15]
This collection of three books published in 1967 elaborated Derrida's theoretical framework. Derrida attempts to approach the very heart of the Western intellectual tradition, characterizing this tradition as "a search for a transcendental being that serves as the origin or guarantor of meaning." The attempt to "ground the meaning relations constitutive of the world in an instance that itself lies outside all relationality" was referred to by Heidegger as "logocentrism," and Derrida argues that the philosophical enterprise is essentially logocentric[16], and that this is a paradigm inherited from Judaism and Hellenism.[17] He in turn describes logocentrism as phallocratic, patriarchal and masculinist.[17][18]
Derrida contributed to "the understanding of certain deeply hidden philosophical presuppositions and prejudices in Western culture"[17], arguing that the whole philosophical tradition rests on arbitrary dichotomous categories (such as sacred/profane, sign/signifier, mind/body), and that any text contains implicit hierarchies, "by which an order is imposed on reality and by which a subtle repression is exercised, as these hierarchies exclude, subordinate, and hide the various potential meanings."[16] Derrida refers to his procedure for uncovering and unsettling these dichotomies as deconstruction.
The next five years of lectures and essay-length work were gathered into two 1972 collections, Dissemination and Margins of Philosophy, and in the same year a collection of interviews, entitled Positions, was also published.
This collection of three books published in 1967 elaborated Derrida's theoretical framework. Derrida attempts to approach the very heart of the Western intellectual tradition, characterizing this tradition as "a search for a transcendental being that serves as the origin or guarantor of meaning." The attempt to "ground the meaning relations constitutive of the world in an instance that itself lies outside all relationality" was referred to by Heidegger as "logocentrism," and Derrida argues that the philosophical enterprise is essentially logocentric[16], and that this is a paradigm inherited from Judaism and Hellenism.[17] He in turn describes logocentrism as phallocratic, patriarchal and masculinist.[17][18]
Derrida contributed to "the understanding of certain deeply hidden philosophical presuppositions and prejudices in Western culture"[17], arguing that the whole philosophical tradition rests on arbitrary dichotomous categories (such as sacred/profane, sign/signifier, mind/body), and that any text contains implicit hierarchies, "by which an order is imposed on reality and by which a subtle repression is exercised, as these hierarchies exclude, subordinate, and hide the various potential meanings."[16] Derrida refers to his procedure for uncovering and unsettling these dichotomies as deconstruction.
The next five years of lectures and essay-length work were gathered into two 1972 collections, Dissemination and Margins of Philosophy, and in the same year a collection of interviews, entitled Positions, was also published.
Starting in 1972, Derrida produced on average more than a book per year. Derrida continued to produce important works, such as Glas and The Post-Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond.
A sequence of encounters with analytical philosophy is collected in Limited, Inc. Derrida wrote "Signature Event Context," an essay on J. L. Austin, in the early 1970s; following an aggressive critique of this text by John Searle, Derrida wrote a long (and no less aggressive) defense of his earlier argument.
Derrida received increasing attention in the United States after 1972. For a considerable period, however, Derrida's work influenced American literary critics and theorists much than it did philosophers.
A sequence of encounters with analytical philosophy is collected in Limited, Inc. Derrida wrote "Signature Event Context," an essay on J. L. Austin, in the early 1970s; following an aggressive critique of this text by John Searle, Derrida wrote a long (and no less aggressive) defense of his earlier argument.
Derrida received increasing attention in the United States after 1972. For a considerable period, however, Derrida's work influenced American literary critics and theorists much than it did philosophers.
Some have argued that Derrida's work took a "political turn" around 1994, heralded by the publication of Specters of Marx and Politics of Friendship. Others, however, including Derrida himself, have argued that much of the philosophical work done in his "political turn" can be dated to earlier essays.
Those who argue Derrida engaged in an "ethical turn" refer to works such as The Gift of Death as evidence that he began more directly applying deconstruction to the relationship between ethics and religion. In this work, Derrida interprets passages from the Bible, particularly on Abraham and the Sacrifice of Isaac,[20][21] and from Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. Derrida's contemporary readings of Emmanuel Lévinas, Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, Jan Patočka, on themes such as law, justice, responsibility, and friendship, had a significant impact on fields beyond philosophy. Derrida delivered a eulogy at Lévinas' funeral, later published as Adieu à Emmanuel Lévinas, an appreciation and exploration of Levinas's moral philosophy. Here, Derrida followed Bracha L. Ettinger's interpretation of Lévinas' notion of femininity and transformed his own earlier reading of this subject accordingly.[22]
Derrida did not move away from readings of literature; indeed, he continued to write extensively on Maurice Blanchot, Paul Celan, and others.
Those who argue Derrida engaged in an "ethical turn" refer to works such as The Gift of Death as evidence that he began more directly applying deconstruction to the relationship between ethics and religion. In this work, Derrida interprets passages from the Bible, particularly on Abraham and the Sacrifice of Isaac,[20][21] and from Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. Derrida's contemporary readings of Emmanuel Lévinas, Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, Jan Patočka, on themes such as law, justice, responsibility, and friendship, had a significant impact on fields beyond philosophy. Derrida delivered a eulogy at Lévinas' funeral, later published as Adieu à Emmanuel Lévinas, an appreciation and exploration of Levinas's moral philosophy. Here, Derrida followed Bracha L. Ettinger's interpretation of Lévinas' notion of femininity and transformed his own earlier reading of this subject accordingly.[22]
Derrida did not move away from readings of literature; indeed, he continued to write extensively on Maurice Blanchot, Paul Celan, and others.
Jacques Derrida (El-Biar, Algéria, 1930. július 15. – Párizs, 2004. október 8.) nagy hatású és nagy vitákat kiváltó kortárs, posztmodern francia filozófus. A jelentés, értelem és ezek elméleteinek újszerű megfogalmazása gondolkodása eredetiségét tükrözi: nevezetes módszere a dekonstrukció, melyet mind a filozófiában mind az irodalomelméletben alkalmaznak (főként ez utóbbiban lényeges a konstruktivizmussal való szembenállása). Lényege a fogalmak, illetve irodalmi alkotások lebontása, visszabontása és sokszor a szabad asszociáción alapuló újraépítése, melyet újabb visszabontás követ, anélkül, hogy valaha is végső értelemmel bíró interpretációhoz jutnánk. A filozófiatörténetben kimutatja, hogy a filozófiai rendszerek alapvető ellentétességekre épülnek (pl. jó-rossz, külső-belső, egyes-általános), mely párok egyik tagját a rendszer előnyben részesíti a másik rovására. Az előnyben részesített fogalomnak azonban Derrida szerint csak a másik fogalommal való ellentétében van értelme. Tagadja, hogy a filozófia általános célja, a végső, lezárt rendszer lehetséges lenne. Lényeges fogalma az elkülönböződés (différance- szándékos betűcserével), mellyel a dolgok különbségükben történő megjelenését, különbségükben való létét érzékelteti, valamint a kiegészítés (suppléer), amely a dolgokkülönbözőségéből eredő hiányra vonatkozik. A szubjektum nem centrum, középpont, hanem bizonyos konstrukciók állandóan változó összessége. Az ember hiányaiból építkező lény, aki a folyton mozgásban lévő különbségek alapján fedezi fel a dolgok értelmét, melynek soron újabb és újabb kiegészítésre szoruló hiány keletkezik: nincs végső értelem, csak az interpretáció előrehaladása.
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